These sample scans are from the original record. You will get scans of the full pages or articles where the surname you searched for has been found.

Your web browser may prevent the sample windows from opening; in this case please change your browser settings to allow pop-up windows from this site.

Feet of Fines for Devon
(1195-1214)Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in the county. This transcript was prepared for the Commissioners of the Public Records by Joseph Hunter, and printed in 1844. It covers entries for the county from the surviving rolls from the 7th year of the reign of king Richard I to the 16th year of king John.

COLETON. Cost: US$8.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Norfolk Feet of Fines
(1196-1307)Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in Norfolk. These abstracts were prepared by Walter Rye.

COLETON. Cost: US$8.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Clerks and Clergy in Cornwall and Devon
(1307-1326)The register of bishop Walter de Stapeldon of Exeter, containing general diocesan business, but in particular including ordination lists for monks and clergy. Only a small proportion of the clerks went on to acquire benefices and remained celibate. Latin

COLETON. Cost: US$12.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
(1305-1342)These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Regesta of popes Clement V, John XXII and Benedict XII. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Clement V was consecrated and crowned 14 November 1305 (the day from which his pontificate is dated); John XXII was crowned 5 September 1316; Benedict XII 8 January 1335 and died 25 April 1342. From 1309 onwards the papacy was in exile at Avignon. The extracts were made by W. H. Bliss from Regesta lii to cxxxvi, and published in 1895. Bliss remarked that 'although the writing of the Papal Registers of the 14th century is clearer than that of many contemporary English MSS., the entries in them were for the most part founded upon petitions or letters from different countries, and the scribes in the Papal Chancery must have experienced even greater difficulty in copying English proper names than English students experience nowadays in reading the early Chancery Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Not having local or personal knowledge, they constantly misread doubtful letters.'

COLETON. Cost: US$8.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Grantees of offices, commissions and pardons
(1350-1354)The Patent Rolls are the Chancery enrolments of royal letters patent. Those for the 24th to the 27th years of the reign of king Edward III (25 January 1350 to 24 January 1354) were edited for the Public Record Office by R. F. Isaacson, and published in 1907. The main contents are royal commissions and grants; ratifications of ecclesiastical estates; writs of aid to royal servants and purveyors; and pardons.

COLETON. Cost: US$4.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

London, Essex and Hertfordshire clerks, clerics, monks and clergy
(1361-1374)Ordinations to first tonsure, acolytes, subdeacons, deacons and priests, from the register of bishop Simon de Sudbury of London. London diocese covered Middlesex, Essex and part of Hertfordshire; the ordinations also attracted many persons from distant dioceses bearing letters dimissory from their ordinaries, and these are duly noted in the text. Many of these clerks would not go on to obtain benefices and remain celibate. The lists of subdeacons, deacons and priests state the clerks' respective titles, i. e., give the names of the person or religious house undertaking to support them. Monks and friars ('religious') are listed separately, and the lists of subdeacons, deacons and priests are also separated into beneficed and not beneficed (or 'not promoted'). The acolyte lists are unusual in giving a parish or diocese of origin.

COLETON. Cost: US$12.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
(1362-1404)These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Regesta of popes Urban V, Gregory XI, (Anti-Pope) Clement VII, Urban VI and Boniface IX, and the Lateran Regesta of Boniface IX. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Urban V was consecrated and crowned 6 November 1362 (the day from which his pontificate is dated); Gregory XI was crowned 5 January 1371; Clement VII 31 October 1378; Urban VI 18 April 1378; Boniface IX 9 November 1389 and died 1 October 1404. Until 1376 the papacy was in exile at Avignon. The extracts were made by W. H. Bliss from Regesta ccxlv to cccxx and Lateran Regesta i to xliii, and published in 1902. Bliss remarked that 'although the writing of the Papal Registers of the 14th century is clearer than that of many contemporary English MSS., the entries in them were for the most part founded upon petitions or letters from different countries, and the scribes in the Papal Chancery must have experienced even greater difficulty in copying English proper names than English students experience nowadays in reading the early Chancery Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Not having local or personal knowledge, they constantly misread doubtful letters.'

COLETON. Cost: US$8.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Licences for marriages in southern England
(1632-1714)The province or archbishopric of Canterbury covered all England and Wales except for the northern counties in the four dioceses of the archbishopric of York (York, Durham, Chester and Carlisle). Marriage licences were generally issued by the local dioceses, but above them was the jurisdiction of the archbishop. Where the prospective bride and groom were from different dioceses it would be expected that they obtain a licence from the archbishop; in practice, the archbishop residing at Lambeth, and the actual offices of the province being in London, which was itself split into myriad ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and spilled into adjoining dioceses, this facility was particularly resorted to by couples from London and the home counties, although there are quite a few entries referring to parties from further afield. Three calendars of licences issued by the Faculty Office of the archbishop were edited by George A Cokayne (Clarenceux King of Arms) and Edward Alexander Fry and printed as part of the Index Library by the British Record Society Ltd in 1905. The first calendar is from 14 October 1632 to 31 October 1695 (pp. 1 to 132); the second calendar (awkwardly called Calendar No. 1) runs from November 1695 to December 1706 (132-225); the third (Calendar No. 2) from January 1707 to December 1721, but was transcribed only to the death of queen Anne, 1 August 1714. The calendars give only the dates and the full names of both parties. Where the corresponding marriage allegations had been printed in abstract by colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester in volume xxiv of the Harleian Society (1886), an asterisk is put by the entry in this publication. The licences indicated an intention to marry, but not all licences resulted in a wedding.

COLETON. Cost: US$8.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Masters and Apprentices
(1733)Apprenticeship indentures and clerks' articles were subject to a 6d or 12d per pound stamp duty: the registers of the payments usually give the master's trade, address, and occupation, and the apprentice's father's name and address, as well as details of the date and length of the apprenticeship. 2 January to 2 August 1733

COLETON. Cost: US$16.00.

Sample scan, click to enlarge

Intended brides and grooms in East Sussex
(1670-1739)Sussex was in the Diocese of Chichester, divided into two archdeaconries - Chichester for west Sussex, Lewes for the east. Both archdeaconries exercised active probate jurisdictions, and issued marriage licences. Those issued by Lewes Archdeaconry court in this period were recorded in a series of registers (E3, E4, E5 and E6), which were edited by Edwin H. W. Dunkin and published by the Sussex Record Society in 1907. Each entry gives the date of the licence, the full names of bride and groom, with parish for each, and often stating whether the bride was a widow or maiden. To obtain a licence it was necessary for the parties to obtain a bond, with two sureties. One of these was often the prospective husband; the other might be a relative or other respectable person. From the bonds the names of the sureties were also copied into the register, together with the name of the church at which the wedding was intended to take place. These details are usually given until 1701; thereafter sureties and intended church are usually omitted. One deanery in Lewes archdeaconry, that of South Malling, was an exempt jurisdiction (or peculiar) of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which had separate probate and issued its own marriage licences, also recorded in a series of registers. This volume also includes the contents of registers C1 to C6 of the Deanery of South Malling, for marriage licences from 1620 to 1732. The details recorded are as with the main series, similarly lacking names of sureties and intended church after 1721. South Malling deanery comprised the parishes of Edburton, Lindfield, Buxted, Framfield, Isfield, Uckfield, Mayfield, Wadhurst, Glynde, Ringmer, St Thomas at Cliffe, South Malling and Stanmer.